


A Life That Used To Trouble Me

by redhotkittypepper



Series: Helping The Murphys [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson, Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Aliens, And Now For Something Completely Different, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossover, Dorks in Love, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Multiple Crossovers, Sequel, Time Travel, Veronica is Haunted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 06:00:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16989369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhotkittypepper/pseuds/redhotkittypepper
Summary: The past never stays buried.Set immediately after the events of 'One Thing Left To Do', Connor and Evan try to pursue a relationship and work through their own ups and downs...but are promptly dragged into the drama when the illegal time machine Alana built starts acting up.Family secrets are dragged into the light, Evan can't seem to stop lying, and Veronica is forced to reconcile with her dark past.





	1. Prologue: Poughkeepsie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica and her ghosts skip town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to PART 2 of my weird crossover sci-fi series. More tags will be added as I figure out the story and where it's going. Rating is for later chapters and I will add tags as needed. Folks, I'm gonna try to write something sexy--hang on to your hats.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this sequel and please drop me a comment/kudos if something resonated with you. <3 
> 
> .....

July 2016

On her last night in Sherwood, Veronica put on an old plaid shirt she found in the trunk under her bed and went down to Duffy’s Bar. It was a hot evening, just now dark enough that the streetlights had come on, anyone who had air was cooped up inside and anyone who didn’t was at the bars. As she rolled down Finch Avenue, more and more shop lights flickered on, and the old clock tower was cast in warm light, its witch’s hat peak sharp enough the pierce the belly of the sky. Deep blue clouds darkened the horizon, blown in on a hot breeze, so thick they obscured the stars. On the courthouse steps, a gang of local kids were drinking bottles of vending machine lemonade and passing around a cotton-candy flavoured vape. Their laughter was bright and jarring like shattering glass. It was nights like this that made Veronica want to run like she used to: pack up the car in the middle of the night and drive. By dawn she’d be in a county she didn’t bother to learn the name of and checking herself into the first motel off the highway. Those days were behind her. 

Duffy’s bar was packed. Veronica ambled down the alleyway finishing off a cigarette before stepping inside. The band was in full swing, music and drunken laughter spilled out of the back door. A kid sloshed out into the alley as Veronica pulled the door open--he was probably nineteen trying to look twenty-one with about two drinks too many in him for this time of night. He was scrawny with a mop of red-brown hair and a face-splitting smile. Veronica caught him by the elbow. 

“Steady there, kid.” 

“M’fine.”

Two other kids about his age slipped out the door, casting worried looks over their shoulders. They each took an arm and hauled their inebriated friend further down the alley. Veronica took a long drag on her cigarette and watched them, frowning. 

“Fuckin’ kids,” a thick Brooklyn voice said. Veronica turned. Duffy stood in the doorway with a polishing rag in one hand and a beer glass in the other. He was dressed down for the night with a black apron slung around his waist. Even at his most menacing, he came in just shy of five-six, but anyone with a decent head on their shoulders knew better than to test him. Minors didn’t stand a chance when Duffy bartended. “Do they think I was born this morning?” 

Veronica grinned and flicked her cigarette onto the pavement. “Ain’t no cure for being young and stupid, Duff,” she said, mocking his accent. 

He gave her a look and an eye roll. “Well, ain’t you wise.”

Veronica smiled again, but bitterly. 

Duffy punched her arm. “Come inside, Sawyer. I’ll get you a beer, and I promise I won’t ID you.”

Veronica laughed. “Thank Christ for small mercies. I’m glad there’s some perks to getting old.”

 

…..

 

The ghost arrived sometime in the middle of Veronica’s second beer. 

It was busy even for a Friday. Duffy cleared a spot at the bar and slid a Heineken in front of Veronica before hurrying off. 

“Back in a minute!” he shouted over the thundering band. She didn’t blame him--the place was hopping. 

Veronica sipped her beer, looking around. The bar was built from the skeleton of an old ale house that Duffy’s grandfather had bought in the early 1900s when he moved from Brooklyn, his son in tow. Duffy and his brothers had done a full reno when they took ownership about twenty years ago after their dad had let it sit empty for the rats. No one knew what made Harry Conlon hate his old man so much, but everyone figured out pretty quick that it was an off-limits topic. Unless you fancied getting punched out by a guy half your height. Harry had moved back to Brooklyn in the years before he died, but Duffy and his oldest brother, Tye, had stayed behind in Sherwood. 

Veronica had gone to school with the youngest Conlon brother, Jesse, the only one who hadn’t inherited the family temper. 

She glanced around, wondering if any of them were here tonight. There were a few people she recognized, neighbours, old teachers, kids she went to high school with, scattered around the place. Veronica was glad it was dark inside the bar and double glad she’d worn Roger’s old shirt instead of her usual get-up. She wasn’t in the mood for reminiscing. One of the servers, a tiny blonde, she recognised as Grace Oldfield--McNamara’s oldest girl. Veronica hadn’t seen her since she was about fourteen; she was the spitting image of her mother. 

Duffy came back then, shaking his head and muttering. Veronica raised her eyebrows at him and grinned as if to say ‘What else is new?’ Duffy’s dark eyes twinkled and he wiped his hands on his apron before grabbing two more beer and sliding one over to Veronica. He leaned against the counter, coming close enough that Veronica could hear him.

“You’re the only sensible one here tonight, Sawyer.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “That’s a damn shame, Duff,” she said, accepting the second beer. “Because I’m not known for my good judgement.”

Duffy gave a little laugh, looking at Veronica like he wished she was joking. His breath smelled like Wintergreen. He leaned back, smacking a hand on the counter. 

“I guess that’s why you never dated me in high school, eh?”

“Keep telling yourself that, sport,” she said, eyes teasing and soft. “That may have been the one good call I ever made.”

“Ah, fuck off, Sawyer. You love me.”

Veronica flicked a beer cap at him and smiled. 

She felt better than she had in months.....until she looked past Duffy’s head at the mirror. All colour left her face. Duffy frowned as if something serious had occurred to him. He opened his mouth, then catching Veronica’s expression, closed it. 

“What’s wrong?’

Veronica was still for a long moment. In the mirror behind the bar, she caught sight of a blonde ponytail flowing through the crowd. A blonde ponytail with a red scrunchy. 

“Shit.”

Heather Chandler made a terrifying ghost. From her bouncy ponytail to her long bare legs and that red kimono that had a tendency to almost fall open--she looked like a daydream ….until you got closer. On closer inspection, she was the personification of a nightmare. Her bruised throat was lined with sickly black veins, her eyes were forever bloodshot and purpled with oxygen deprivation, and her smile revealed a chemical burned mouth and a toxic blue tongue. A beautiful ghoul--forever sixteen. Even in death, her lip gloss game was untouchable. 

But Heather was not here to frighten Veronica with her appearance--she was a constant in Veronica’s life as a literal devil on her shoulder. No, Veronica wasn’t scared of Heather’s ghost, she was scared of what Heather had come to tell her. 

She hovered next to Veronica and without breaking eye contact drew one perfectly manicured thumb across her throat. 

“Boys say make a run for Manhattan, girlfriend.”

“How far out?”

“Sundown.” 

Veronica slid her gaze back to Duffy who was staring at her with a look of wary concern. She needed to leave--now. Duffy may have heard about Veronica’s penchant to talk to ghosts but knowing it happened and actually seeing it happen were two very different things. 

“Duff,” she said, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “I was never here tonight, okay?”

Duffy looked at her sharply. He was trying to shove his discomfort down but it was bubbling over, his face was neutral but his eyes were burning. 

“You’re running, aren’t you?”

“Not running. I’ll be back before summer’s out. Probably.”

“Right.”

Veronica wished for a moment things were simpler. That she could tell Duffy everything that had been eating her alive. That she could take him up on his offer, give up her apartment, and move in with him in his family’s old farmhouse by the lake. She’d even bring the damn cat, let him mouse in the barn. 

But things were not simple. Things were inextricably irrevocably fucked up. And Veronica didn’t have time to explain it all to him now. She leaned forward and took Duffy by his collar, planted a kiss on his stubbly cheek, and said, “Thanks for the beer, Duff.”

Duffy did not have the Conlon family trait of keeping a straight face. He shouted after her, “Where the hell you even going, Sawyer? You even got a plan?” 

Veronica ran a hand through her short brown hair. She turned and fixed Duffy with a glittering smile.

“Always.”

Duffy shook his head. 

“Oh, and feed my cat, won’t you?” she added, prying a single key off her fob and tossing it to him. “I’ll be back before you know it, Duff.”

“You’d better be, Sawyer.”

 

….

 

Veronica made the phone call from the highway. Someone picked up on the tenth ring. 

“Yeah, hello?” a man’s voice said. He sounded tense, angry. 

“Murphy, it’s Veronica. I’m rolling through can I stop by?”

“Running to or running from, Ronnie?”

“I’ve got to get to Manhattan by sundown.” She said it like a death sentence, knowing he would know exactly what it meant. 

“Shit. Get here as fast as you can. I’ll tell Cynthia something.”

In the back seat, Heather stuck out her electric blue tongue. Next to her, the boys appeared, flickering into view like a trick of the light. 

“Madison is eight hours away. You even got enough gas to pull that off?”

Veronica glanced at the rearview mirror, a sharp stab of panic hitting her guts. The road behind them was dark and empty. The lights of Sherwood were pinpricks in the distance. 

“You watch the road, sport,” she snapped. “And don’t tell me how to drive. We’ll make it.”

Her ghosts never stopped watching the road behind them. 

By midnight, she could see the lights of Madison.


	2. Like Buddies Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor's hung up on Evan, but he got some hang-ups about being in a relationship.  
> Enter Connor the unreliable narrator.

Of all the places Connor Murphy thought he’d end up in life, sitting in the Hansen’s kitchen letting Heidi dye his hair was not one of them. Not that he was complaining. 

He had come over earlier that afternoon to see Evan because what else was he supposed to do during summer break but stalk his not-boyfriend. 

Cynthia had kicked him out of the house for a walk mentioning something about it being unhealthy to sleep that long and the benefits of Vitamin D and Connor had put his boots on and fled just to get her to stop talking. Evan wasn’t answering his texts which meant he was at work, but Connor found himself wandering down Oakwood anyway. 

He only meant to hang out on the porch swing until Evan got home but had run into Heidi instead.

He really liked Heidi--unlike his Mom, she had a sense of humour. 

“I don’t think you’re meant for summer, Connor,” she’d said wandering up the driveway from her car. She was dressed in scrubs with little pink-and-yellow ducklings on them and was carrying the largest coffee mug Connor had ever seen. She nodded at his hair. “You’re fading.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I think I’ve got some of that colour in a box upstairs. Why don’t you come in?”

“For real?”

“Didn’t Evan tell you I used to be a hairdresser? I used to do his hair all the time.”

Evan had come home just as she was mixing up the dye. Connor was sitting shirtless on a kitchen chair with a ratty teatowel draped around his shoulders. 

“Evan, honey, I couldn’t help myself,” she said, glopping dye onto Connor’s head and massaging it in with a gloved hand. “I swear this isn’t what it looks like.”

Evan shrugged off his Pottery Barn vest and came into the kitchen. “So, you’re not actually dyeing Connor’s hair?” 

“Funny guy,” Heidi said. She tapped Connor’s shoulder and turned back to the counter to mix up more dye. “You’ve got way too much hair!” 

To Evan, she said, “There’s lemonade in the fridge, kiddo.”

Evan gave Connor one of his tiniest and sneakiest smiles. 

“Hey,” he said in a voice that made Connor’s scalp tingle. Or maybe it was just the ammonia in the hair dye. “Want a lemonade?”

“Sure.”

“You look good,” Evan said, grinning. “You could be an Elvis impersonator.”

“Fuck off, Hansen,” Connor said, laughing. 

His eyes followed Evan as he wandered to the fridge, drinking him in as he leaned over to find the cans of lemonade. After what was probably far too long, Connor noticed Heidi watching him watch her son. 

He dropped his eyes, face suddenly hot. Busted. 

“So, how was work, kiddo?”

She had a twinkle in her blue eyes that made Connor’s skin itch. 

 

….

 

Sometimes when he thought about it too long, Connor wondered what Evan saw in him. It wasn’t a thought that was ever far from his brain but it was worse when Evan wasn’t around to disprove it. When he was with Evan, everything that buzzed in Connor’s brain buzzed quieter. 

They were in Evan’s bedroom lying head to foot on the bed--the closest either one of them was going to get to a sixty-nine--and Connor was supposed to be reading but his eyes kept slipping off the page. Evan had a funny way of breathing--in-in-out, in-in-out. Maybe it was because he was lying on his stomach. 

Evan was actually reading--he had some book about the Amazon forest propped open on the pillow in front of him--and every minute or so he made a little humming noise as if he’d just learned something really valuable. Connor had given up on understanding the plot of his book and was counting how many Kermits there were on Evan’s Muppet socks. 

“Um, can I help you?” Evan said, craning his head around to glare at Connor. 

Connor had hold of Evan’s ankle. “Twenty! I couldn’t see the whole thing. You have twenty Kermits on your socks, Evan.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to be interrupted.”

“Evan, I’m serious," he said, voicing rising. "Why the fuck are they called Muppet socks when there is a clear bias towards Kermit?”

“So, I guess we’re taking a reading break,” Evan said, rolling onto his back and closing his book. 

“Why not just called them Kermit socks?" he said. "Why even get the other Muppets’ hopes up?”

Evan tried to tug his ankle free but Connor held on. “I don’t know, buddy.”

Connor set Evan’s ankle down. “Buddy?”

Evan’s face went the colour of a late season tomato. “What’s wrong with ‘buddy’?”

Connor made an irritated noise. “Well, nothing. If you’re seven. Or like living in the American South in the 1960s.” 

“Okay, chill,” Evan said.

“Buddy.”

“Okay! I won’t call you ‘buddy’ anymore.”

“No, like, I don’t care.” Wow. That came out bitchier than he meant it. 

“Clearly you do.”

“I don’t,” Connor insisted. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“I can just think of like ten-thousand better words to call me,” he said, lamely. 

Like boyfriend. 

“Is jackass one of them?”

“Fuck off, Hansen.”

“No, I mean, like, c’mon. You set that up beautifully.”

“I said, Fuck OFF, Hansen.” Connor snapped. 

Evan sat up suddenly, eyes wide. He slipped off the bed. 

“I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly. 

Connor blinked. He hadn’t meant to shout. 

“Stop apologizing, Evan. I didn’t--”

“Let’s go watch a movie!”

He was out of the room before Connor could reply. 

“Oh. Okay.”  
…..  
In the aftermath, Connor did admit he was sorry. Connor and Evan ended up slumped on Evan’s couch watching cartoons while Heidi microwaved dinner. The cartoons were on mute. Connor’s left hand kept creeping onto Evan’s leg, fiddling with his pant’s pocket. 

Before they sat down, Evan had gone into the kitchen and grabbed Connor’s backpack, rooting through it until he found his bottle of pills and set it on the table with a can of lemonade.  
Connor couldn’t look at it. 

The hand in Evan’s lap twitched then began its hesitant fiddling again. Connor stared at the silent TV. With his finger, he wrote on Evan’s leg: “S-O-R-R-Y.”

Evan captured Connor’s cold fingers and gave them a squeeze. He thought that might be the end of it; Evan wasn’t one to hold a grudge. It was his own damn fault, after all, he’d seen Evan go back into the kitchen after setting Connor’s pills on the table and take his own with a swig of water from the tap. 

It wasn’t in Connor’s nature to be forever apologising but that didn’t mean Evan had to always pick up his pieces. He turned, mouth half open to tell Evan that he shouldn’t apologise when he caught sight of his face. Connor looked down into searing affection dripping from a pair of blue eyes. Affection, regret, and self-hatred all swirling together like a bitter sap and leaking from Evan’s blotchy face. 

“Ev--?”

BANG! 

Connor started so hard he bit his tongue. 

“I’m fine!!” Heidi shouted from the kitchen. “Keep watching TV! Supper is….Well, it’s a work in progress!!”

Evan snorted. “I hope you’re not hungry.”

He wiped his face with his sleeve and snorked a bit until he could look at Connor again.

“I think your phone’s going off,” Evan said shifting away from Connor’s side so he could fish his phone from his hoodie pocket. 

“Shit.” 

“What?”

Connor held up his phone. 6 Missed Calls from Mom. 

“Shiiiiit,” said Evan. 

….

Heidi had wanted him to stay for dinner but didn’t make him. She’d taken Connor by his skinny shoulders and hugged him, called him her hero for looking after Evan, then let him go. 

Connor let himself out of the house. He knew Evan was standing at the window; he knew Evan was waving. 

His head was buzzing, a little voice was screaming: he’s only with you because he feels sorry for you. 

Connor fled down the sidewalk without looking back.


	3. Like I Know My Own Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble is brewing in the Murphy household.

At home, Cynthia was at the sink handing Zoe plates as she dried them. Zoe had set the table for three; Cynthia handed her another plate with a speaking look. 

To Connor, she said, “Perfect timing, honey!”

To everyone’s eternal surprise, Connor went to the drawer and got out four forks and four knives and started laying the table. 

Zoe’s phone went off. 

“Were you with Evan?” Zoe asked, flipping through her phone. 

Connor frowned. 

Cynthia filled the pause. “What’s going on with you and Evan? He hasn’t been over in a while. Is he busy?”

“Maybe he's got a girlfriend?” Zoe snarked.

“Does Evan have a girlfriend?”

“Of course not.” 

Connor threw a fork at her. “Fuck you, Zoe.”

“Connor! Please!” 

Connor retrieved the fork and threw it in the sink. He went to the drawer and got another. 

Zoe and Cynthia shared a look of utter astonishment. 

“What’s everyone worked up about,” Larry Murphy said, laying his briefcase on the counter and shrugging off his jacket. Zoe held out her hand and took it from him, placing a kiss under his chin. 

“Hey, Zo-bug,” he said softly. “Thanks, hon.”

Cynthia stood, hands on her hips, between Larry and Connor. “I thought you said you’d be home early, Larry,” she said, in a tone that could have been cheerful if not for the steel in her smile. 

Zoe rolled her eyes and slunk around to her seat. “What’s it matter what time he gets home? He’s here isn’t he?”

Connor, trapped between his mother and the sink, didn’t know where to look. Zoe’s face was a mask of barely concealed sass, rivalling even his own. He caught her eye as she sat, arms folded and glaring, and waggled his eyebrows at her. Her scowl didn’t budge. He tried again, mouthing ‘You need to get laid” and finishing off the sentence with a rude hand gesture. That earned him a middle finger. 

Cynthia, ending her stalemate with Larry in favour of diplomacy, laid out dinner. Shockingly, it was not only edible but appetizing. His Mom had bought the Slow Food cookbook and kept harassing her family to act like they liked each other--honestly, Connor infinitely preferred it to her Gluten-Free kick even if she did have a tendency to force feed him. 

She kept heaping potatoes, gravy, chicken and peas on Connor’s plate. “Here, honey, eat up.” She glanced at Zoe who was texting furiously. “Zo-bug, are you joining us?”

Zoe looked up and looked right at Connor with a smirk. She sat down and playfully poked her chicken with her fork. “So what’d you and Ev get up to today, Con?”

Connor kept his eyes down. “We just hung out at his house.”

“Who’s Evan?” said Larry. 

“Anything interesting happen?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Eat your peas, Zoe. Stop antagonizing your brother.”

“Evan’s just a guy from school. We’re friends.”

Larry looked up, realizing Connor had spoken directly to him. “Oh. Well. That’s great.”

“Yes,” said Cynthia grabbing her wine glass. “He’s Connor’s --um--well--special friend.”

Zoe and Connor both looked at their mother as if she might be suffering a stroke. Connor wanted to crawl under the table and die. He wondered if Evan had to endure this from his Mom. 

Zoe, ever the champion, cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, he’s his what?”

Cynthia took a long sip of wine. 

“Did we get zapped back to the 1990s?”

Larry was looking slowly from his daughter to his wife, chewing thoughtfully. He made eye contact Connor and pulled an ‘I don’t think I understand the problem, here’ face. 

Connor felt his face going red.

“Zoe, stop,” he muttered. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this at the table--”

“No, seriously, Mom. Explain. What does--”

“Zoe,” Connor said, voice rising. 

“--special friend even mean? Do you perhaps mean he’s Connor's---”

“Zoe, I said Stop!”

“Evan is clearly Connor’s boyf---”

Connor was across the table before she finished speaking. The gravy boat went flying, mashed potatoes smacked Zoe square in the face. 

Connor threw his fork at her. 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he snarled, before he fled up the stairs and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. 

The phone rang. 

“Jesus Christ,” Larry grunted.

Cynthia looked at her daughter. “Really, Zoe.”

Zoe blinked and swallowed hard. She wiped a smear of mashed potato from her hair. “Excuse me? How am I the one in trouble right now?”

“We both know how sensitive he is about Evan.” 

“Have we even met this Evan?”

The phone kept ringing.

“He’s a kid Connor met at school, apparently. I KNOW him--”

“I think we just need to let Connor figure it out for himself--”

Larry stood up and retreated to the hallway. 

The phone stopped ringing. 

“He never even spoke to Evan until I said I was interested in him!”

“Zoe,” Cynthia said, quietly. “Connor’s going through a really rough time. It’s important that he has friends like Evan.”

Zoe stood up, shoving her plate away. “This family is fucking ridiculous.”

She stormed out the patio door, leaving the glass rattling behind her. Cynthia sighed and reached over to right the gravy boat before it started dripping on the floor. Then she put her face in her hands. 

Larry appeared in the doorway looking shaken. Cynthia looked up at him with a weary expression, as if she didn’t recognise him. 

“Who was on the phone?”

“It was your sister.”


	4. Watch it All Crash and Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica arrives at the Murphys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to post--my brain needed a vacation from thinking after finals.   
> Enjoy some more dysfunctional family dynamics brought to you by the Murphys. :)  
> As always, thank you for reading. And thank you more for commenting. <3

It took Veronica all of about four minutes to regret coming to Madison at all. Family will do that. The lights were on when she pulled in 44 Maple Street. Not just some of them--every single light in the house was blaring, disrupting the thick summer night. 

Exhaustion clung to her eyelids. This was just a classic Cindy move. She knew she was the family fuck-up but at least she was honest about it--the Murphys liked to pretend everything was fine. Like staying up until dawn screaming at your husband was normal. 

She parked on the grass next to the oak tree and sat for a moment listening to the engine cool down. 

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick

“I don’t think she’s following us,” Ram said, leaning forward bracing his taut arms on the headrest. 

“Yet.”

Veronica scraped her hair from her face. A dull percussion had picked up in the lobe behind her eyes. 

Tick-tick-tick-bump-bump-tick-tick-tick

“Look, it’s not like Cindy is going to kick us out,” Heather said. “We can at least crash in an actual bed until we figure out our next move.”

Kurt looked up at this. “We haven’t set foot in that house in...like, what?”

“Fifteen years?”

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-bump-bump-bump-BUMP

“Like, a bazillion years, okay? Do y’all not remember what happened last time we were here?”

Heather stuck out her tongue. “Not my fault, okay? That was ages ago.”

“She’s not following us. Maybe we lost her.”

“Don’t be stupid. She’s not going to stop hunting us just because we skipped town.”

“This is going to be the first place she’ll look!”

“GUYS!”

The ghosts fell silent. 

Veronica ran a hand through her hair, taking deep breaths. She felt as if she were floating two feet above her own body. She closed her eyes. 

ticktickticktickticktickticktickbumpbumpbumpbbump

“No one knows we’re here,” she said. 

Someone rapped on the window. Veronica was too startled to even scream, it got stuck in her throat, and she inhaled so fast she choked on her own spit. 

“JESUS FUCK, ZOE!” she shouted hoarsely. The pale face on the other side of the window was impassive, regarding her with raised brows.

Veronica climbed out of the car and slammed the door, taking in her niece. 

“You scared me, kid.”

Zoe was dressed in an oversized ‘Panic! At the Disco’ hoodie, jeans, and flip-flops. Her hair was damp and lay in knotted strands over her shoulders. She looked tired, angry, and just a little bit stoned. 

“Why are you sitting out here talking to yourself?”

“I had some things to think about, okay?”

“Whatever. Are you coming inside or are you just going to sleep out here in your car like last time.”

Veronica ran her tongue thoughtfully over her teeth. She nodded at the house, lit up like a landing strip. 

“What’s the temperature?”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “They’ve been fighting since dinner.”

Veronica sighed. 

“But, I think they’re winding down.”

 

….

As it turned out, they were not so much winding down as counting their losses. Zoe urged Veronica through the front door, grabbing her overnight bag and fleeing up the stairs. 

“Mom’s in the kitchen,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll put this in the spare room.”

“Gee, thanks,” Veronica muttered. 

Cynthia sat at the island, tapping idly at her phone. She looked calm--except for the state of the kitchen. Dinner lay half-eaten on the table, Veronica swore she saw a fork stuck in the centrepiece, potatoes were smeared across the tablecloth, dishes stood in the sink half full of water now gone cold, and a small handprint of what looked like gravy had dried on the usually gleaming door of the stainless steel fridge. 

Veronica sighed. 

“Don’t try to be funny,” Cynthia said, not looking up from her phone. “I’m having a really bad night.”

“Okay.”

“And you need to go deal with Connor because he doesn’t listen to me,” she continued, sounding petulant. “He’s just so unpredictable!”

“Sure.”

Veronica moved to the sink. The two big pots used to boil potatoes in were too big to fit in the dishwasher; they needed to be washed by hand. 

“And don’t even get me started on Zoe--the attitude on that child is just outrageous,” Cynthia said. She was scrolling through her Facebook feed, not pausing long enough to read the headlines or absorb any of the news. 

Veronica nodded and rolled up her sleeves. She was still wearing the oversized plaid button-up over her black tee. One bare hand plunged into the cold slimy water and pulled the drain. Once it had emptied, she filled up the sink with hot soapy water and began scrubbing the pots. 

“And Larry’s gone up to bed as if nothing has happened, of course. He has to work in the morning, he said. God, I could slap that condescending look off his --” 

She stopped. 

“Nevermind,” she said, reaching for her glass. It was empty. “It’s just been a long night and we’re all tired and I’ve had this terrible headache all day--” She went to the pantry and emerged with another bottle of wine. “--and I just thought things would be better by now.”

Cynthia sat down and began attacking the cork with a rose-gold corkscrew. 

“And of course you decide to show up right in the middle of all this--you always do--and I look like a mess and there’s all my extra clothes in the spare room that I’ll have to move and of course Connor will tell you every single thing I’ve done to him like you’re fucking Amnesty International and I guess I’m going to have to put all my clothes in the attic now because there’s no room anywhere else and---” She let out an exhausted sob. “--and there’s gravy on my fridge door.”

Veronica turned and careful not to drip her soapy hands on her sister’s cardigan, pulled her into a tight hug. Cynthia gave into it willingly, resting her tearstained face on Veronica’s neck. In a small voice, she said, “Ronnie--who the fuck wiped gravy on the fridge.” 

Veronica gave a long sigh. “Cindy, I love you.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Look at your hands.”


	5. All We See Is Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nice chapter in which Connor goes to therapy and realizes some things.

She’d opened the windows but Dr Vali Sherman’s office was breathless. Connor's lungs felt starved--like breathing through a straw. 

“So, Connor, shall we begin?” 

One leg crossed over the other, Vali’s olive coloured slacks slid up to reveal a slim ankle, clean and unshaven, adorned with a gold bracelet. Her little elephant engraved pen lay tucked between her fingers, hands resting calmly on her lap, and her notepad slept inconspicuously on the armrest. 

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. “I, um, well--I got in another fight.”

“Who did?”

“All of us,” he said. “But mostly me.”

“Is that true?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“It’s all your fault--that’s what you’re saying?”

“No, I mean, clearly not. Zoe was pissed about something and then Mom started freaking out about stuff--and, oh, well I mean Dad was late to dinner.”

“So those are contributing factors?”

“Yeah--I mean, I was okay when I got home, except I don’t know I was --” Connor paused. “I guess Mom would say I was looking for a fight.”

“I see,” Vali said. “And did you start the fight?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I mean--I was trying to--I mean I tried to apologise but they wouldn’t let me--Zoe was being such a bitch for no reason.”

“So maybe it’s fair to say there were things happening that were beyond your control?” 

A pause. 

“Oh. Yeah.” Connor shook his head, mouth curling ruefully. “Obvious, right? Do you ever get bored telling people the same fucking things over and over again?”

“It’s easy to misinterpret things people say--especially people we live with--when we’re feeling emotional. It’s important to remember that you are one piece of the situation--one piece of the problem, let’s say--you are not the whole problem.”

“I guess I just always feel like it’s my fault.”

“That’s understandable--you take on a lot, Connor.”

He looked away, pulled into reverie by the familiar phrase. 

He caught a glimpse beyond the swaying white curtains and gazed further out across the lake where a stand of oaks moved with the unseen wind. He heard the highway--the distant whine of engines--and he heard the noise of people walking along the boardwalk--dogs barking and the shriek of a small boy chasing ducks--and he felt the air stir and bring the scent of the water and warm grass and scorching pavement and then he felt the wind as it pushed aside the curtains and swept through the room, touching the hair slipping from his bun and curling at his neck, moving the paper in Vali’s notepad, then retreating. 

He heard the rustling leaves, whispering like a thousand unseen voices, and watched the sunlight kiss the trees. 

“I’ve been hanging out with Evan lately,” he said, at last. 

“It seems like he’s become really important to you.”

“He says we’re friends.”

“And are you?”

“I guess so.”

“Why the hesitation?”

Connor grappled for the right way to say it. He hadn’t said it like this to anyone before. He didn’t think he even knew the right words to get it across.

“I don’t want to be friends with him.”

He recalled the look on Evan’s shiny face the afternoon in the park. He’d leaned over so casually and tucked a strand of hair behind Connor’s ear and said, ‘You take on so much, buddy. You’re stronger than you think.’ 

Vali regarded him calmly through her small round glasses. There was a sparkle in her dark eyes that Connor had seen before. 

“What do you want, then?”

“I--I don’t know.”

“It’s okay not to know. You have all the time in the world to figure it out, Connor.”

“What if he won’t--” he faltered. “What if he can’t wait for me to figure it out?”

“Has he said that he won’t?”

“No--he’s just--he looks at me like he knows me like he’s known me all his life and he’s waiting for me to realize.”

Vali nodded, and carefully took down a note in her pad. 

“Then there’s only one thing to do,” she said. 

“What?”

“Go forth and see what happens.”


	6. And Marry A Lawyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica reveals her purpose in coming to Madison.

He found her in the attic. 

Veronica sat in the window seat amid a dozen old banker’s boxes stuffed full of papers and legal journals. Heaps of paper, foolscap as thin as a layer of skin pressed with pencil and ink, carpeted the rough hardwood floor. A chaotic unravelling of years of work. The boxes were dated in a slanting scrawl--Larry’s handwriting. 1990, 1992, 1996… The archives went back from long before Connor was born before his parents were married. 

Late afternoon light filtered through the window--the only window in the room, a large oval-shaped pane laid with blue glass--and cast a cold pool of indigo over the room. Veronica didn’t look up when he entered but Connor wasn’t foolish enough to think he’d snuck up on her. Lost in a reverie. He’d seen that look on her face before. 

He never thought of his aunt as old--she was always the firecracker of the family, bright and sharp as a broken shard of mirror-- but her face was drawn and tired. Her short brown hair was shot with fine silver strands and deep lines carved the corners of her eyes. They had the same kind of freckles--his aunt and him-- just the faintest splatter of colour across the nose and cheekbones. But where Connor was ghostly, Veronica was brown. Where Connor was spindly, Veronica was sturdy. Where Connor was slouching, Veronica was upright and wiry.  
Fierce. That’s always the impression he got. 

It was Veronica’s strong brown hands that hauled him to his feet when he wiped out on his skateboard in the third grade. It was Veronica’s birthday when he knew just what to get her--a silver ring inscribed with wild salmon jumping upriver. She kept a picture of that day on her nightstand--most of the time face down so as not to snag the tripwire of memory--but Connor, even at thirteen, knew it meant more to her than anything. 

She was standing by the river just at the mouth of the rapids where the fish seemed to fly through the air, each jump launching them further only to be beaten back by the pummeling water. He didn’t recognise the man in the photo, the shabby-looking young man in a plaid shirt standing next to Veronica with an arm hooked around her neck to pull her in for a kiss, but he knew that he was gone; his belongings lay in a trunk under Veronica’s bed. 

They’d visited the river every spring to watch the salmon, she said in the rare times she’d let Connor ask her questions about it. She never said his name; that’s how Connor knew he wasn’t just dead but gone. Veronica had never been afraid of the dead. 

The first time Connor knew his aunt was different he was six years old. They were standing in his parent’s backyard next to the fire pit, it was early spring but neither one wore any shoes. Veronica walked barefoot through the squishy grass, mud squelching through her toes, to the rose garden. The roses were bare--blackened limbs hard like bone. Connor stood on the porch, toes curling in the cold damp air, and pulled his bare arms inside his t-shirt. Veronica moved slowly, eyes fixed beyond the garden wall, focused on something only she could see. 

She was singing, just like the way he’d seen his mother sing to horses, low and wordless. A hum that said ‘I am here, right here, I mean no harm.” Veronica’s strong fingers pulled the briar open, thorns leaving stinging bites, and coaxed whatever it was that was trapped in the roses out into the open air. She found words then, once the vision was gone, she said ‘I’m so sorry,” over and over until Connor crossed the cold lawn to stand next to his weeping aunt and put his little hand in hers. He didn’t know what she’d seen and she to this day wouldn’t tell him. He’d recognised the song she sang to the ghost, though. It was the same song his Mom sang him to sleep. 

A baby’s lullaby. 

Veronica had always been different. Walking in this world while seeing another. Connor had once hated the look she got on her face when a ghost appeared. An expression he didn’t understand--couldn’t have understood--until he saw it on his mother’s face as she kissed his scarred wrists last fall. Remorse. Heartbroken regret. It was the exquisite pain of loving someone more than yourself--and knowing, in Veronica’s case, that you were much, much too late to save them. 

“Cat got your tongue, kiddo?”

Connor looked up. Veronica had a pair of wire-framed glasses perched on her nose giving her an air of wisdom. 

“What are you doing?” he said, shaking a hand through his long black hair before drawing it up into a bun. “Can I help?”

“Sure,” she said, sliding one of the boxes off the window seat to make room. “Find me anything that says Helios on it.”

Connor moved gingerly to the bench, sneakers crunching discarded files. 1998-May, 1999-January. The dates were getting closer together. He grabbed a sheaf of paper labelled 1999-June and began rifling through its contents. Court reports, police statements, endless reams of handwritten notes again in his father’s slanted script. Harrison and Manhattan Law Firm headed each page in a fine watermark. 

“I forgot you and Dad worked together,” he murmured, running his fingers over the faded handwriting. “These are all his notes, right?”

Veronica nodded. “We both got hired by Manhattan right out of college; we were interns together before Larry became one of the partners.”

“But not you?”

Veronica smiled ruefully. “It’s not all his fault. I decided I wasn’t cut out to be a defence lawyer...only about ten years too late.” 

“Still.”

“I’m sure they weren’t torn up to see me go. I wasn’t exactly easy to control.”

“Yeah, because unlike Larry you’ve got a conscience. You’d be a great lawyer if you could work alone.”

“You can’t become something out of spite. You have to want it,” she said softly. “I thought I had just two choices so I picked the lesser of two evils...not because I wanted it but because I couldn’t bear to go down the other road, but it turns out life is never so simple.”

“You found a way out?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Found isn’t the right word.”

Connor didn’t know what to say to that. He dropped his eyes back to the file folder. 

“There’s nothing about Helios in any of these boxes,” he said. 

Veronica sighed. “I didn’t want to draw attention to myself but I guess I don’t get a say in how this plays out,” she muttered. “She’s going to force me out into the open.”

“Who is?”

Veronica took off her glasses and slipped them in her shirt pocket. Connor blinked, noticing for the first time the shirt his aunt was wearing. A blue plaid button up, worn at the elbows, and about two sizes too big for her. A man’s shirt. 

“Auntie, why have you come here? You never used to visit us like this before.”

Veronica ran a hand through her short brown hair, silver strands catching in the dying light, then rubbed her eyes. 

“You could say I didn’t have a choice,” she said bitterly. “But that’s not true. I chose to stay away for all these years and I chose to become what I am and I chose to come back.”

Connor frowned but didn’t interrupt her. Veronica stood up and clapped the dust off her black jeans. 

“Grab your keys, kiddo. There’s only one place Larry would have put my case notes and I’ll be damned if I’m walking into that place without backup.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to go visit an old friend of mine.”

Connor nodded, he knew better than to argue when Veronica had that fierce look in her eye.


	7. Burning Is The Right Way To Paint It

“What’s Helios?”

Veronica glanced over at Connor from the passenger seat. Slouching with one arm out the window, she looked more like the sullen teenager than he did.

“It’s, uh, a long story, kiddo,” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette.

Connor raised his eyebrows. He flicked on the turn signal and eased the SUV around the corner of Maple Street.

“Are you at least gonna tell me where we’re going? Or are we just gonna circle the suburbs like a couple of weirdos?”

Veronica snorted. “You’re funny, kid. Head up Division Street.”

“Oh, no,” Connor said, realizing where his aunt meant to take them. “You’re not serious.”

“Like a heart attack. Don’t tell me you lied about getting your license.”

“I did--or, I mean, I didn’t. I have my license--God.”

Veronica laughed and flung her arm out the window.

“Then drive on,” she commanded. “And pray Jansson isn’t on duty.”

Connor sighed and turned onto Main Street, heading east.

It was a bright day. Connor wished he had brought sunglasses every time the sun glinted off the storefronts.

Madison whizzed by in a blur of bright windows and red brick buildings and Connor realized how long it had been since he’d been downtown during the daytime.

At the lights, he spotted a couple of kids he knew from high school sitting at a patio outside an ice cream shop. A small pang reverberated through his chest. Did Evan like ice cream? Why hadn’t they ever gone there? Was that weird? Maybe he would think it was a date and get freaked out. Evan tended to get freaked out when they went out.

Connor couldn’t figure Evan out--he was funny and smart and confident when they were alone together but as soon as they went anywhere outside in public he became someone Connor didn’t recognise.

He just shut down--nothing Connor said made him laugh, nothing Connor did would convince him to let Connor touch him--he became Evan, the boy made of stone. It was hard not to take it personally.

_He does it because he doesn’t want anyone to think we’re together,_ Connor’s brain reasoned.

Connor tried to uproot that thought when it crept in but he never got rid of it entirely. It made him want to puke, to disappear, to crawl under the covers and never wake up again.

Because wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake--to find out the boy he’d been in love with since eighth grade didn’t like him that way after all.

Connor had never felt so sick and so hopeful at the same time until he started spending time with Evan Hansen. 

To speak to him was like trying to drink scalding coffee--painful but desperately satisfying, to hold his gaze was like staring at the sun, and to touch him was like walking into fire. Holding Evan’s hand was all Connor could manage without actually losing the power of speech.

Evan got this sad look on his face whenever Connor tried to tell him how he felt so eventually he just stopped trying. But it nagged at him, worrying at the inside of his mouth, words that demanded to be spoken.

_I don’t know why you want me. You don’t deserve a mess like me. Wouldn’t you rather have someone who doesn’t need to be talked off the ledge every other night? A friend--a boyfriend--who doesn’t require so much work._

But he didn’t say any of that out loud -- mostly because he was too chicken to ask Evan if they were really dating. He just let Evan keep inviting him over, let Heidi keep feeding him her strange dinner creations, and let the clock keep running on whatever it was that was forming between Evan and him.

Sooner or later, he knew, it would run out.


	8. Acquaintances

The cruiser was making Connor nervous. Officer Jansson was leaning against the hood of her police car, making small talk with Veronica while Connor sat idling at the curb. 

Nothing short of a bolt of lightning would persuade him to step out of the SUV.

To say he and Officer Jansson were on bad terms would be putting it mildly.

She kept peering at him through the windshield trying to determine if he was fit to drive. Not that he could blame her, per se. 

The last time they had spoken he’d been high on more than just pot and he had called her a few regrettable words; she had, in retaliation, promptly suspended his license and, worse, called his father to come to pick him up.

That was a car ride Connor wasn’t likely to recover from anytime soon--silence loud enough to make his skin crawl and the look of sheer rage threatening to consume Larry’s impassive face as he drove them home through the April downpour.

Later, it all came out in one of his father’s classic lectures. Zoe called it his court voice--the monologue than stretched on for hours.

_ I will not tolerate this, Connor. You’re old enough to understand the consequences of your actions--you could have killed someone, you could have crashed and killed yourself! Is that what you want? I’m not even going to ask where you got the drugs.  _

_ Unbelievable.  _

_ Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch my son become the kind of person I would have to defend in court? Is that what you want to become? A criminal. A crackhead. For someone who reads as widely as you do, Connor, you’re making some astoundingly stupid life choices.  _

On and on it went.

....

With a start, Connor’s head snapped up as Veronica slid into the passenger side and slammed the door. He started the engine then rested his hands on the wheel, thumbs tapping. 

“So?”

“Follow the cruiser.”

“Great, those are such comforting words.”

He reversed out of the roundabout and waved for Jansson to go first. She flicked the siren giving a short  _ whoooop-woop  _ before easing out onto Division and merging into the right lane. 

Connor followed. In the passenger seat, Veronica had lit up another cigarette and had her gaze fixed on some point out the window. 

 

Murray Hall was on the far side of campus, farther from the rest of the faculty buildings. It was old and reminded Connor of the cover of some kind of nineteenth-century gothic novel. They parked around back next to the rugby pitch and he stepped out. The air was cooler this close to the river.

Connor heard a weird kind of call-and-response chanting over the wind. He half expected ghostly English school children to come marching around the corner by the fields--but it was just the boys' rugby team warming up on the pitch. 

One person sat alone on the stands not watching the scrimmage but instead studying a book in her lap. A little pebble of recognition dropped in Connor’s gut. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said over his shoulder. 

Veronica was finishing her cigarette and only nodded. Connor hurried across the parking lot and onto the crunchy brown grass. 

He was halfway across the lawn before he realized he had no clue what he was going to say. He stopped. God, this was foolish. He was about to turn back when a bright voice said, “Hi, Connor!” and he looked up into the wryly cheerful face of Alana Beck. 

No turning back now. 

“Hi,” he said. He had one foot propped up on the bench steps. He stepped up trying to come off as friendly but he realized that just made him tower over her instead. 

He sat down. Then realized she hadn’t actually asked him to join her. He shot up again. 

“Uh, yeah. Hi. I just wanted to say Hi”

“How’s your summer going? Mine’s going great. Dr. Baron asked me to intern again so I’m back at Murray. God, he has a lot of books. But it’s better than last year because this time I’m really getting a feel for the campus. I’m going here in the Fall so getting the lay of the land is key, you know, even though we have Frosh.”

When she drew breath, Connor broke in. 

“Yeah, I’m not going to Uni this year.”

“Oh, wow. I never considered taking a gap year--but they say it’s really beneficial. Evan’s taking a gap year, too, but of course, he’s all bent out of shape about it. You know, you sound really mature about it.” 

“It uh was my Mom’s decision.”

“Of course,” she said, nodding sagely. “Parents know best, right?”

“I guess.”

An awkward silence fell over them. 

“Are you and Evan like...friends?” he ventured. 

“Best friends. We’ve been really close ever since--well, I mean since last year,” she said, stopping short. “He talks about you a lot, though. Are you guys dating?”

Connor sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “God, I don’t know. Is that what everyone thinks? I didn’t even know Evan was--I mean, not that I’ve been super upfront about it--but it’s all so--”

“Unclear, right? Well, as his best friend I can tell you that Evan really sucks at social cues. It took him four weeks to speak up in Environmental Club and there were only three of us who went every week. I usually talk for him. Like, if we go out somewhere I always order for him and if we get pizza or something I always have to call because he doesn’t like talking on the phone.”

“Oh,” Connor said, his heart sinking a little. “I never noticed that.”

“Well that’s because you guys have only been dating for a couple months, right?”

“I don’t think we’re dating. We only really met in June.”

“Oh, but I thought he would have asked you out after you--” Alana stopped, mouth snapping shut. “I guess I’m thinking of someone else.”

“After what?”

“My break is over--I should go back in.”

She stood up, brushing off her grey khaki shorts and tucking her book back in her bag. Connor nodded, avoiding her gaze. He slid off the bench and stepped down on the dry grass. 

“Yeah, I should go find my aunt.”

Alana frowned as if weighing something in her mind.  “Connor, I think we should be acquaintances.”

“Okay--I mean, we already are.”

“Yeah, but real ones. We should, like, email or something,”

He laughed self-consciously. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to--or, I mean, I feel like I want to know you better.”

Connor stared at her. She didn’t seem like she was joking. Behind her thick-paned glasses, her brown eyes were glittering with earnest. 

“I’m not that interesting,” he managed to mumble. 

“Everybody’s interesting. Actually, my parents are having a barbecue tomorrow night, and some people I met during my internship are coming over to play lawn bowling. You should come. Evan will be there. I’m making him come, too, so you guys can suffer together.”

“Um, okay.”

“Let me give you my address.” 

She grabbed his wrist, pushing up his sleeve, and with a fine-tipped sharpie scrawled  _ 2122 Pine Street Friday 4 pm _ across his arm.  

“It’s the house with the blue door,” she said before turning on her heel and hurrying off towards Murray Hall. She peeked over her shoulder and called, “Oh, and bring a helmet!”

A helmet? Did he even own a helmet anymore?

Connor wandered back to the car where he sat with the windows open. He stared into space, idly watching the rugby team finish their warm-ups and start jogging off the pitch down towards the river path. After a while--he really didn’t know how long--Veronica appeared with Officer Jansson, each carrying a huge banker’s box full of journals and notes. 

He hurried the open the trunk for them. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“And then some,” Veronica said, grunting as she heaved the box into the trunk. “Who were you talking to all this time?”

“Oh,” Connor said, glancing at his wrist. “I got invited to a barbecue.”

“Someone from school, then?”

Connor smiled, tracing a careful finger over the scars at his arm. Like lines on a page, they held up the precious information. 2122 Pine Street Friday 4 pm. 

A barbecue. 

Lawn bowling. 

Wow.

“Yeah,” he said. “Alana. She’s a friend.”


	9. Better When I'm With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys in a park, what else? Mostly fluff.

In an alternate universe, the way Connor Murphy spent his Saturday mornings could be called romantic. In this universe, it was called borderline stalking.

Not that it started out that way. Not at all. And he never would have been moved to sit in the exact same spot in the Oakwood Street park every Saturday morning of summer break had it not been for Evan’s making the first move.

Yet, there he was sitting cross-legged under Evan’s favourite tree waiting for Evan to come by. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have just texted Evan and made plans--of course he could have. That wasn’t the point. The point was Evan thought Connor liked hanging out in the park, just went there on his free time to sit under the trees and read. It was Connor’s fault, to begin with -- that’s where the stalking comes in. 

He only went to the park with the hope of running into Evan. And now, he had to keep up appearances. 

When he’d bumped into him outside Dr. Sherman’s office, he had really expected just a quick polite ‘hello’ and maybe a smile. The bar for what he considered ‘connecting with other people’ was at an all-time low. He’d had a shitty year, yes. Given. But he knew, as did most of Madison High School, that Connor Murphy’s bad mood pre-dated September 9 th , 2015. It had been a constant since age seven. The mood swings, the irritability, the tendency to smash, push, hit, and yell at the top of his lungs. That wasn’t new.

But Evan was sitting on the little bench by the office gardens, looking kind of peaceful, tapping away at his phone—some weird off-brand thing—and Connor couldn’t help but stare. Of course, he knew Evan. Everyone kind of new everyone, especially when you went to grade school with the same eighty kids or so. But Evan was kind of a mystery. He didn’t have any friends, he didn’t really talk much, and yet he never really seemed upset by it. There were times when Connor, kept inside from recess for picking a fight or losing his temper, lifted his head to see the familiar shade of light blue t-shirt out of the corner of his eye. Evan never got in trouble, he stayed in from recess on purpose. That left an impression on Connor. 

Sometimes, later on in high school, he wondered if Evan was sitting in some empty classroom, reading or studying, while Connor sat in detention. He was like a piece of blue sky that shows through when the storm clouds part, even if just for a split second. Connor couldn’t see him and not wonder—how did you become the person you are? Cool, calm, and unaffected. That was the other thing that always got him—Evan was always smiling. He never talked to anyone—except occasionally Jared—and yet he never seemed upset or tired or down or depressed or … well, none of the things that were carved into Connor’s face on the daily. Connor’s smiles had a way of breaking his face but Evan’s were simple, sweet, and almost kind of soothing.

So, Connor spent his Saturdays reading paperbacks in the park with Evan curled up next to him under the same tree, calmly absorbed in some Scientific American article, his breathing slow and steady. Connor didn’t have the heart to tell Evan literally no one else spent their weekend mornings like this; there were a lot of things about Evan that Connor would defend until his last breath. His obsession with trees--objectively boring, yes--made Connor’s heart sing. Evan’s eyes lit up every time Connor pointed out a change in colour on the maple trees or mentioned the size of the acorns on the oaks. Stupid shit like that made his day. And, honestly, Connor loved it. He loved how much Evan loved things. Evan adored every bug under the bark and every branch, even those not yet blushed with leaves and still heavy with sleeping buds. Evan loved the reasons--the science--behind the natural world. He often lectured Connor for hours on the intelligence of trees, their root system, their interconnectivity, the ways they learned and grew. For him, trees were easier to comprehend than people. For one, you could get a handbook for understanding trees; not so for people. 

On this particular Saturday morning, Connor sat under the huge maple tree wearing a thick pair of sunglasses and pretended to check a text on his phone. It was warm but not yet unbearably hot and he’d opted to leave his hoodie at home. A soft wind blew through the worn patches in his t-shirt like a ghostly hand on his flesh. 

The light bothered him. Sunlight sent him into a fuzzy state of being and he wandered around like a bat in daylight. Bumping into things, grumbling at his family instead of speaking, generally cocooning himself in his hood and waiting for the pain to ease. Sunglasses helped. The only problem with wearing shades was that everyone assumed he was hungover--which fair, sometimes he was--but most of the time he was battling a weird species of a migraine. 

“Connor. Hi.”

A swatch of soothing shade fell over Connor’s face as Evan stepped in front of the sun. Connor slipped his shades up into his hair and grimaced. 

“Hey, Hansen. Fancy meeting you here.”

Evan seemed disproportionately pleased by this remark, became flustered and muttering something like “You say that every Saturday.” He settled down on the shady grass and heaved his backpack onto his lap. 

“Did you bring your entire bedroom?” Connor said, watching Evan pull volume after volume from the flimsy canvas bag. “Jesus, Ev, you’re not going to read all those are you?”

Evan gave him a withering look. “I’ve already read most of them. I just like having them for--I mean it’s important to have reference material, right?”

“Sure, but four NatGeo volumes?”

“I like the pictures! Oh, and I brought this one for you.”

Connor’s head snapped up. “You did?”

Evan handed him a slim volume dressed in glossy black paper. It looked new. 

“How’d you know--” he stopped, cleared his throat and started again. “Uh, thanks. I guess I must have mentioned that I used to be a huge astronomy nerd.”

Evan’s eyes widened like he’d let something embarrassing slip out. He was staring, frozen, at the book in Connor’s hands. 

“Oh, I guess you must have, yeah,” he said woodenly. 

A beat passed in awkward silence. Connor wasn’t exactly sure what he’d said wrong. He tried again. 

“I used to have all the constellations memorized, you know. My dad even put glow-stars on my ceiling. Like, perfectly placed constellations arranged in cheap glow-stars.”

To his relief, Evan smiled softly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Oh, I said that already, huh?”

“Oh! No!” Evan said hurriedly, the awkward blush was creeping back into his shiny face. “I mean, yes! You did. Yes. Sorry, that was so confusing of me. When I said, no, I meant like ‘no, but it’s so interesting to say it again’ not, like, no, ‘i’ve never heard this before…’”

Connor had to smile. 

“You’re so weird,” he said, softly punching Evan’s arm. 

Evan gave a long sigh like a deflating balloon and reached for one of his books. 

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who hangs out with me.”

“Ha. Funny.”

“I try.”

“If I remember correctly, it was you who befriended me, not the other way around.”

“Don’t remind me,” Evan said, teasing. 

“Regretting your decisions, Hansen? You know there’s a reason I don’t have any friends.”

“Didn’t use to have friends, you mean.”

Connor twisted his mouth to keep from grinning like an idiot. Didn’t use to have friends, indeed. 

Evan regarded him calmly, his eyes very serious. 

“People underestimate you. You’d have tons of friends if people knew what you were really like. You should reach out. Talk to people.”

“Why should I?” Connor said, scoffing. 

“I don’t know. Don’t you want to know people?”

Connor ran his thumb over the spine of the shiny book in his lap. “I have enough people in my life, I don’t want any more.”

“Okay, but you can still explore, talk to people, get some perspective.”

“I don’t need to talk to people for that. Usually, just a few minutes of sitting in their presence is enough to get a decent read on them. Honestly, most people are boring.” 

“Well, you could tell them about yourself, share your perspective.”

“I don’t give out personal information,” he said, darkly.  

“Okay, who are you the FBI?”

“No, that’s not-- I mean I don’t operate like that. I observe; I’m not part of the observation. Scientific purity and all that. Heidegger's principle.”

He thought Evan of all people would know what he meant. Evan, who needed no one, who floated through high school unscathed by being alone.  

“That sounds like a fancy way of saying you’re socially awkward.”

“Well, yeah, I am that, too,” Connor admitted, laughing bitterly. He didn’t understand why Evan didn’t get it. He tried again. “But I don’t want to interact with people. We’re not--it’s like we’re not the same species. I feel so different from them. I really don’t need to gather more evidence of how weird I am.”

“But maybe there are people just as weird as you, and they’re missing you--or you’re missing them--because you never reach out.”

“That’s a big if, Evan. I don’t think there’s anyone like me at our school.” 

“You let me in.”

“Well, you kind of aggressively befriended me, first of all,” he muttered. “Not that I mind, it’s nice. But you also just accept me--stuff I say, things I feel, all of my bullshit, you just accept it and move on. You don’t pry, you don’t act like you need to save me, you just listen and nod and distract me when I’m feeling crazy. Besides, I’ve never had friends, I’ve only had a vacancy for one. Quota’s filled. I don’t need anyone else.”

“Hm.” Evan made a pleased noise in the back of his throat and brought his hands up to brush pollen from his hair and attempt to cover his blushing face. 

“Make sense?”

Evan smiled in a way Connor could only call sad and secretive. “As much as anything does these days.”

Huh. Connor didn't know what to make of that. He sat back against the tree letting the bark poke into his spine, a firm reminder that he was  _here_ and right next to him was Evan Hansen. Living breathing Evan Hansen. Connor cracked open the cover of 'A Brief History of Time' and began to read.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate: Connor has some misconceptions about Evan--he has a hard time seeing that Evan is just as anxious and confused as he is--and Connor tends to idolize Ev and considers him perfect. 
> 
> I will be updating more often now that school has started and I've got a good handle on my classes. Thank u all for reading and commenting and giving Kudos. I read them all even if I don't reply & love all the warm feedback.   
> xoxo,  
> M


	10. One More Disaster I Can Add to My Generous Supply

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which many things go sideways--conversations, good intentions, and Bocce balls.

Alana’s house was nothing like Connor imagined. First of all, it was old; really old. There was a stone laid by the doorbell that read ‘1894’ and Connor had a feeling it was genuine. Second of all, it was full of people nothing like Alana. 

Connor didn’t know Alana all that well but it was kind of hard to miss the key components that made her world tick--organization, communication, and lots of enthusiasm. The Beck family certainly had enthusiasm but as far as organization...Connor had no clue how Alana didn’t smother them all in their sleep. 

Connor stepped into the hallway and was confronted with the nicest looking mess he’d ever seen. The issue wasn’t that the house was dirty--every visible surface was sparkling--it was that there were so few visible surfaces to be found under the sheer amount of stuff. Bright fabrics, endless bookshelves, floating shelves holding things like succulent arrangements, sugar skulls, and hand-carved lions were just some of the things that caught Connor’s eye. Shoes of all sizes were jumbled on the shoe rack--ranging from sneakers to flip-flops to snowshoes to a pair of silver-pink moon shoes. Evan looked relatively calm until he stepped farther into the foyer. 

“Hi, guys!” Alana shouted at them from the kitchen. Shouted, because standing between her and Connor and Evan was a swarm of small children and two dogs. “Keep your shoes on, we’re heading out back!”

Evan, who stood frozen next to the coat rack (smothered in scarves and jackets and not a few feather boas), gripped his fruit tray a little tighter and gave a weak smile. Connor frowned. 

“You okay?” he muttered in Evan’s ear as they wove between the squealing children--some of which were not even Alana’s siblings but just random seven-year-olds from around the neighbourhood, he learned--and navigated over the two Golden Labs who had surrendered happily to endless sticky tummy rubs from jam-covered kids. 

“Totally,” Evan said, voice going squeaky. 

Connor wanted to press him further but they had reached the kitchen and Alana was bustling towards them with her usual bright smile. She hugged Evan after taking the fruit tray out of his hands. 

Evan didn’t like hugs. Especially not from people he wasn’t super close with; he’d told Connor that specifically. 

Maybe Connor misunderstood him. 

Maybe he was just closer to Alana than he let on. 

Huh. 

Connor felt his shoulders slid up around his ears. He wished he’d worn his hoodie. It wasn’t about the scars; he didn’t care if people looked at those but at least when he put his hood up and hovered at the back of the room no one looked at  _ him _ . Without his cloak of invisibility, he was an eyesore. Tall, bony, gangly, and blindingly white. Great. He was probably going to get a sunburn, to boot. 

“Come meet the others,” Alana said, tugging Evan by the hand. She led them through the patio door and out onto the porch where Jared and a bunch of other kids Connor didn’t recognize were lounging around on Adirondack chairs laughing loudly about something. 

Connor didn’t like Jared. Never had any reason to. Except, something had shifted last year; suddenly the barrage of jokes and mean-spirited jibes had ceased or at least slowed. Jared actually nodded at Connor when they passed in the hallway, they’d partnered for a Chem lab once. Connor didn’t trust Jared, though, and years of harassment didn’t disappear overnight just because suddenly Jared stopping hitting him every time he was down. 

“Murphy! Wassup!”

“Kleinman,” Connor said cooly. 

The strangers Connor could only guess at. It wasn’t a big group but around the table, he saw a girl and two boys he didn’t recognize. 

Alana ushered Evan into a chair next to one of the strangers, a shaggy-haired kid with big glasses and a loud booming laugh, and Evan greeted him. 

Oh. 

So they weren’t strangers to Evan. 

“Connor, these are some of my internship friends. They’re also heading to Uni with me in the fall, right here in Madison,” Alana said, brightly. She gestured around the table. “Connor, this is Michael, Christine, and Jeremy; guys, this is Connor, the friend I’ve been telling you about.”

She said the last part with a certain kind of emphasis Connor didn’t understand, but immediately the shaggy-haired kid, Michael, nodded and stood up to shake Connor’s hand. 

“Nice to finally meet you, Con,” he said, grinning. He had a gravelly voice and a firm handshake. Against his better judgment, Connor instantly liked him. He couldn’t say the same for the other two. Christine was sweet but she was also loud, hyperactive, and prone to singing at random intervals of the conversation; Jeremy….well, Connor didn’t have an opinion on Jeremy until later in the afternoon. He seemed quiet, kind of aloof, and didn’t really talk to anyone except Michael. Which was fine or whatever because Connor didn’t really like to talk to anyone but Evan. No, the issue with Jeremy came later during lawn bowling. 

Connor had played lawn bowling before--or, he played what his parents liked to call Bocce ball which was absolutely not the same thing except when the Murphy’s played it--but that had been years ago, like, pre-puberty years. Things had changed; Connor was not only taller but also longer limbed. 

He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but given how the kid was glaring at him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. For his part, he did apologize. Mostly because in the scuffle Evan had landed in the fish pond, nearly squashing some of Alana’s precious koi. He couldn’t let Evan become a fish murderer and ruin Alan’s party because of him. 

It started right after Michael’s first strike; he’d knocked down all the weird mismatched pins, whooped loudly, and planted a kiss on Jeremy’s unsuspecting mouth. Connor, who actually had some sense of how lawn bowling was supposed to be played, rolled his eyes and leaned over to Alana to mutter disparagingly about amateurs. She had grinned and tugged on Connor’s hair to admonish him. The words had hardly escaped his lips when, from over Michael’s head, Jeremy locked eyes with Connor’s and he scowled. 

“Is there something I should know?” he had asked Alana quietly. 

She sighed, biting her thumbnail. “Not now,” she muttered. “I’ll tell you later. I had really hoped to avoid this kind of thing. Oh, is it our turn? Connor, have your go.”

He threw the ball. Or, he meant to. The problem, however, was that his arm was longer than he remembered and therefore he put a little too much force and a tad too much spin on the little wooden ball. 

It slipped from his grasp and smacked Jeremy squarely in the jaw. 

The rest you could say was history because the next time Connor lifted his head he was lying sprawled on the soft grass with a sore shin, bleary eyes, and the sensation of cold dread curdling in his guts. 

Evan was crouched by the fish pond, talking to the koi. Michael had dragged Jeremy into the house to calm down and ice his face. Christine, Alana, and Jared were seated at the patio chairs, muttering darkly over their lemonades. 

The dogs, having lost interest in the children (or perhaps vice versa), hurried over to investigate Connor’s prone form and promptly began licking every inch of bare skin they could find. 

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” Evan said finally. He turned to face Connor and gave him a tiny smile. “At least, it wasn’t on purpose.”

Connor groaned. “Not helpful.”

Evan hummed rather than replying. Connor pulled one of the dogs onto his chest, tilting his head up to let her lick his chin. 

“Are the fish okay?”

Evan blinked. “They seem okay.”

“God, what a fucking mess.”

Connor heaved himself upright, fending off the enthusiastic licks from the Lab, and walked gingerly over to the patio. He felt Evan right behind him. 

“Well, Murphy,” Jared said, tossing him a can of lemonade. “I guess we should all be thankful you never took an interest in intramural sports, eh?”

Evan snorted into his juice. Connor rolled his eyes and flipped Jared the bird. Alana was smiling in a sad kind of way that he didn’t really understand. He ran a hand through his damp hair, and scratched his ear. 

Then Evan spoke. He leaned over and placed a paper plate loaded with fruit and cheese in front of Connor. 

“I know you like strawberries so I saved you all the biggest ones,” he said quietly. And honestly, Connor couldn’t even remember when he told Evan he liked strawberries, and even if he hadn’t, strawberries had rocketed to the top of his list of favourite foods as soon as Evan spoke. 

Huh. 

 

“So,” he said, looking around to see that Jeremy and Michael were really inside. “Are you going to tell me what his fucking problem with me is?”

Christine cleared her throat. She’d been sitting behind Alana, obscured partly by her shoulder, but leaned forward now. 

“It’s kind of a long story,” she said. 

“I’m patient,” Connor said, folding his arms. “Besides, it’s not like I can go anywhere fast; the kid took a chunk out of my shin with that kick.”

Christine’s eyes flickered over him nervously; he felt her gaze linger on his arms.  _ Here we go.  _ He hated the look people gave him when they noticed the scars--it wasn’t pity, he could handle pity--it was embarassment. Christine looked mortified, like she was remembering everything she’d ever said in his presence and second-guessing herself.  _ What if I set him off? _ Connor saw it daily in the eyes of his parents, his teachers, his sister. It was fear. He wished he’d brought his hoodie--scratch that--he wished he’d never come here in the first place. He hadn’t been lying that morning when Evan asked him why he didn’t reach out to people--it was abundantly clear why. Everyone was safer if Connor Murphy didn’t try to make friends. Case in point was Jeremy Heere. Case in point was Connor’s increasing foul mood. God, he wanted to disappear. 

“It’s something to do with his Mom, I think,” Alana said, directing Connor’s attention back to the group. “She left when he was pretty little.”

“Okay, and that’s my fault how?”

“I don’t know all the details, Con, but it’s something --uh, well--it’s something to do with your parents. I guess they--I guess your mom was friends with his mom.”

“Still not seeing the fucking problem.”

Alana looked sweaty. Her forehead as shining and a certain brittleness had crept into her smile. 

“Why don’t you ask your parents about it, Con?” Evan said gently. 

“No. I want to KNOW why this stupid kid decides he hates me just because of who my parents are.”

“Please stop shouting.”

“How did he even find out who I am, anyway? And why is it you all seem to know who I am when I’ve barely spoken to you--never even met some of you?”

“C’mon, Murphy, don’t be like that. After all we’ve been through? We’re your fri--”

Jared’s mouth snapped shut.  

Connor could feel his heartbeat thundering behind his ears, his breath whistled between his clenched teeth.  _ After all they’ve been through. _

“I’m sorry--after all  _ who _ has been through?”

The silence that followed was deafening. Connor whipped around to look at Evan, hoping to find the same confusion he felt in his friend’s grey eyes. Evan couldn’t look at him. Head down, Evan looked like he wanted to cry. The air left Connor’s lungs with a hollow thud. 

“What is this the Connor Murphy Support Group?”

Alana made a wretched noise. “No, Con, we’re just trying--we want to get to know you. What’s wrong with that?”

“Why the fuck would you want to know me?”

“Okay, chill,” Jared said. 

No one would look at him. 

“Because I’m such a fucking delight to be around, right? Ask anyone! Ask my sister. Ask Evan!”

He couldn’t look at Evan but he felt his gaze burning into the back of his head. He heard his mouth working, seeking something to say. A small ache had attached itself to the base of his skull, a dull but persistent humming. It travelled, like an electric spider, up his spinal collumn, skittering across his brain. Each inch sent a razor-like buzzing through his head; his brain felt loose, like it was lurching inside his head. 

_ Okay, calm down calm down calm down calm down calmdownclamdownDOWN-FUCK _

“Where were you last year? Where was this kind of bullshit in September? Do any of you know what I’VE been through?”

He caught Alana’s eye, then, and started. He nearly jumped out of his skin. Her brown eyes were burning--not sad, not scared--but two orbs of golden fire, scorching him as she met his gaze; she could have sucked his soul from his body. There was a secret there, behind the burning intensity, but it was lost in translation. 

“Fuck off, I’m leaving.”

He didn’t dare risk going back through the house so he stormed off the patio and hopped the little fence separating the backyard from the driveway. 

By the time he hit the highway, he realized two things simultaneously. The first, was that he couldn’t go home--not like this. He needed to talk to Veronica. She’d understand. He punched the button on the console, letting the line ring while he fumed. No answer. 

“What the fuck,” he muttered. 

He hit the second number. Zoe picked up on the fourth ring. 

“What?”

“Where’s Auntie?” he snapped. 

“Well, hello to you, too, sunshine.”

“Don’t fucking start, Zoe. I’m having a shit day.”

“I’m so glad you called me then,” she snarked. 

“Yeah, well, Auntie’s not picking up.”

“She’s likely not in range.”

Connor’s stomach dropped. For a second, he forgot to be angry. 

“She left?”

The line crackled and Connor heard muffled voices. “She’s at some meeting Dad says.”

“Where?”

“Oh, my God, stalker much?”

“WHERE, Zoe?”

More muffled shouting. 

Then: “Murray Hall. Hey, why don’t you--”

Connor hung up. He was flying down Oakwood Street and made a knifing U-turn at the intersection before speeding off towards the campus. He just needed to talk to Veronica, she’d put everything in perspective for him like she always did. 

He flew by the Oakwood Street Park without looking; he couldn’t bring his eyes to move. He kept his gaze forward on the road, not looking left to the park, nor looking right where in the passenger’s seat sat a cheap canvas backpack full of books about trees. 

He had another item to add to the list of why Connor Murphy was a shit friend: he told Evan he would drive him home. 


	11. Not For Very Much Longer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the PLOT -- more to be revealed, of course.

The archives office was small, cramped, and smelled aggressively like Lysol. Veronica sat crossed-legged under the window with a huge bankers box balanced on her lap, pawing through the sheaves of foolscap and legal paper. She could not for the life of her believe she’d written everything in those boxes--it felt not only like a lifetime ago, it felt like a different person. She looked back on those years, the foolish time in her twenties and early thirties when she fancied herself a lawyer and wanted to smack herself upside the head.  _ Get a grip, girl. _

She had been an idealist, a romantic, ready to take on the big bad world one court case at a time; she learned true dedication as she grew older. The brilliant energy of her youth may have flickered out but Veronica had something more important now--hindsight, they say, is twenty-twenty. 

Monica was a great help; this shocked Veronica more than anything else. She’d left one her summer interns to sort through the endless files at Veronica’s side. A thankless task; but something to pass the time of an unskilled high school graduate. Brooke was heading to Madison U in the fall. She was quiet, whether that was because of Veronica or just her personality, it was hard to say. But she was obedient, focused, and generally pleasant to work with, so Veronica didn’t rib her too much. She also knew that the key to good research was excellent coffee, and arranged frequent trips to the campus cafe. 

“Here you go, Ms. Sawyer,” Brooke said, handing Veronica her third Americano that morning. She’d bought herself a huge pink iced tea with bits of dehydrated fruit floating around in it, and consumed it with glee. “I don’t know how you drink that black--it’s so strong!”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Years of practice, kiddo.”

They were still on a break so Brooke leaned against the rickety school desk where she’d been working, and slurped happily at her drink. She was wearing an oversized yellow blouse over a pair of pink overall shorts and the sleeves hung past her fingers. She was tapping lazily at her phone, smiling now and then at something she saw. Veronica sighed, taking a small sip of her scalding coffee. There was nothing so easy as being eighteen--and yet nothing so difficult at the same time. She leaned back, feeling her spine pop back into alignment, and groaned. 

Her phone rang. It was Monica. 

“How’s the research going, Sawyer?” she said. It sounded like she was in her cruiser, Veronica could hear the crackle of the radio and the low whoosh of the air conditioning. “Any progress?”

Veronica sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Not as much as I’d like. I found some of the original newspaper reports but in terms of real legal information--squat.”

She gestured for Brooke to pass her the stack of manila envelopes on the desk. 

“I can’t say looking over these reports was easy. There’s a good reason this was my last case, you know. God, the stuff in this file makes me want to puke.”

Monica made a sympathetic noise. “I don’t remember the case myself, but I remember you telling me about it. Newspapers won’t help you, though, the bad stuff never broke to the public. All the papers focused on was the arrests.”

“One of them, you mean. We never did get enough evidence to lock them both up.”

“At least you got one of them. Crazy sons of bitches. What is it about doctors that makes everyone trust them blindly?”

“It wasn’t just that,” she said, pulling open the newspaper. The headline read  _ ‘Doctors Baron and Kahn under fire for severe malpractice. Court case drags on.’  _ Veronica skimmed the article. “They were insane. Batshit. But no one reported them until those kids died. There were dozens of medication-related deaths surrounding their practice, the lawyers just couldn’t tie it to them. They were insane--but they were smart. They knew what they were doing, they knew how to play the game.”

Monica sighed. “I remember when the news broke about those kids. It was everywhere.”

“Their names were Jamie and Devon,” Veronica whispered. “They were seventeen. Had they been a year older it wouldn’t have blown up as it did. They’d have been adults--the cops would have turned a blind eye.”

“Things have changed,” Monica said sternly. Veronica recalled to whom she was speaking. 

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I know. That doesn’t make it right.”

Monica hummed. “It was a suicide pact, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what the evidence pointed to, at least.” Veronica couldn’t tell Monica everything; she couldn’t tell her the truth that had been eating her alive ever since the ghosts of those two teenage kids appeared in her office that December evening. Monica couldn’t understand that; no one had understood. Larry sure hadn’t. 

That had been the beginning of the end of Veronica’s legal career. The Helios case had crushed her--mind, spirit, and--although the record refused to acknowledge it--her body as well. She remembered the nights heading home from the Harrison and Manhattan offices, the terror in every moment that some hired thug would attack her while she was getting into her car. There were days she didn’t want to leave the house. 

Of course, no one could prove it was Baron and Kahn behind the attacks, but Veronica knew. The attacks had started immediately after Veronica had gone to Harrison with her findings. 

Larry had written it off as public backlash--people weren’t exactly thrilled that Harrison and Manhattan had taken the Helios case defence. Larry and Veronica both received regular hate mail--irate parents, outraged religious and community groups, letters from the doctors’ former patients, petitions from public school kids, appeals from friends and family.

It was January when Duffy got in his truck and drove all night to the city to act as Veronica’s unofficial bodyguard. Between him and his brother Jesse always at her back, Veronica finally felt safe. 

It was also when she started fighting back. 

She could still see Baron’s face, the colour draining from his cheeks, as the Judge read their sentence. Manslaughter wasn’t what they deserved but it was enough to make Veronica feel she’d done the right thing. She remembered the way Dr. Kahn shrieked at her; the way her pale face contorted in rage, her usually flawless magenta lipstick smearing across her powdery cheek. In her thick European accent, she called Veronica ‘traitor’ loud enough for the courtroom to echo her own gravelly voice back at her. 

Baron betrayed no emotion; his narrow face hardened into a smug scowl as he hissed at Veronica “this isn’t over, Miss Sawyer,” before being led away. To this day, Veronica could recreate his voice in her head; both of them had such strange accents but Baron’s was just plain creepy. He had a way of dragging out his words, speaking agonizingly slow, all the while regarding her with a sardonic glint in his heavy-lidded eyes. 

It was around this time things between her and Cindy became very tense; Larry had stopped talking to her entirely. Veronica took a position as a notary, leaving the Harrison and Manhattan firm with very little chance of a reference. 

“Well, let me know if you find anything,” Monica said. “There’s been no sign of strange activity lately, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

Veronica blinked. “Of course, I know that. I wouldn’t have come here at all if I thought she was hot on my heels. I’m praying I’ve got enough time... Thank you for all your help, Mon.” Veronica’s phone buzzed in her hand. 1 missed call. “I’ll call you later, okay?” 

They hung up, and Veronica scrolled through her call history. Connor had called her; Connor never called her. A cold pebble of fear plunked in her guts. Her phone buzzed again. An email was waiting in her inbox. An email from Larry. 

It had no subject and contained only a link to a New York Times article dated for last Sunday. She had to scroll to the bottom to find any valuable information, but when she saw it, it hit her like a punch. 

‘Doctor incarcerated for medical malpractice released on probation.’ Such a simple phrase, a snippet of information lost in the tide of newsprint and online journalism, but it confirmed every fear Veronica had had since she left Sherwood. 

In stark black-and-white print, she made out the smooth powdery features of Doctor Maria Kahn, her wide bloodshot eyes peering directly into the camera with a look of crazed rage. 

Veronica stood swiftly, knocking over her coffee in her haste to get to the door. Over her shoulder she called to Brooke, who glanced up bewildered from her phone, “Keep working, I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

“Did you find something?”

But Veronica had dashed down the hallway, boots thundering over the tile. Her phone buzzed again but she didn’t answer it. She needed to get back to the Murphy’s house--she needed to talk to Larry. 

She threw herself into her Pontiac and started the engine. For a moment, Chandler appeared in the passenger seat, looking terrified. 

“Just like old times, eh?”

Heather made a disapproving noise. “Too bad we don’t have backup like last time.”

Veronica let out a scathing sigh and shook a hand through her hair as she reversed out of the Murray Hall parking lot and sped off down the highway. Her phone buzzed; she pressed the pedal harder. She just needed to get home. 

She hadn’t found something--but something was trying to find her. 


	12. I Might Not Succeed But I'll Survive

Connor slammed the SUV door with enough force to rattle the window and stood staring at his reflection in the glass, breathing hard.

He didn’t want to be here.

The feeling was ripping up and down his insides, wreaking havoc on his nerves. He wanted to be anywhere but here. Part of him wanted to race across town and steal Evan from his so-called friends. He wished he’d never left Evan behind, had thought to grab his hand and take him with him when he fled.

Another part wanted to go home and get into bed and sleep until the summer was over. Both impossible solutions. Evan liked his so-called friends, seemed to really get along with them; who was Connor to make him give them up just because he didn’t like them?

If only he hadn’t freaked out; if only he knew what to say to people. If only.

He spotted Veronica’s car in the campus parking lot as Connor crossed the browned field to the side door. He slipped inside letting the rusty metal door clang shut behind him. With no clue where he should be going or what room he was looking for, he wandered through the fluorescent hallways peering in the fogged glass windows of each room he passed.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed his aunt’s number. No answer; line busy.

At the end of the hall, Connor found a flight of metal stairs leading to the lower level. Would Veronica be down there? He hadn’t really been paying attention when she said where the archives office was; there didn’t seem to be anyone else around, either.

Connor rubbed his arm. Above him he heard a thundering of footsteps, someone was running top speed down the hall. His heartbeat quickened; best to stay away from anyone who might question him. The last thing he wanted was to get spotted.

He descended the stairs, boots clanging loudly on the metal steps. At the bottom of the stairs he was faced with a frosted glass door, in small letters along the top, he saw “CHEM LABORATORY B143” but nothing about archives.

He peered back up the way he’d come, listening for any sign someone was following him. It was eerily quiet and something about the colour of the lights and the smell of Lysol made Connor’s guts knot with anxiety.

At any moment he expected someone to appear in one of the darkened doorways and ask him what he was doing here. He shouldered his way through the frosted door and stepped quite unexpectedly into a large dark room.

It was a laboratory but Connor didn’t recognize any of the equipment in the room from his high school chemistry class; all along the low walls were banks of compact looking hard drives all linked together with massive bales of black and red cable. In the centre of the room was a tank, it looked like an aquarium except there was a metal platform attached at the mouth and a ladder hanging over the edge. A people aquarium.

The tank was empty; someone had recently drained it.

Meagre sunlight filtered through the grimy basement windows casting strange watery shadows across the cement floor. Next to the tank was a mass of wiring hooked up to an old-school monitor; the whole lab looked like it had been preserved since the 1980s--the monitor was huge and the keyboard looked like something from a mad scientist’s lab rather than the QWERTY style he was used to.

But clearly someone was using the lab--it wasn’t abandoned.

The tank had traces of liquid clinging to the edge and the spillage had collected in puddles on the floor. It wasn’t water but some pinkish fluid that reminded Connor of pink antifreeze. He nudged some of it with his shoe. It was sticky, almost syrupy, and crunched under his sneaker like crystals of sugar. Huh. He wondered what---

 

“And who the hell are you?” Connor whirled around, heart flying to his mouth.

“Uh, I’m--”

A short blonde woman was standing in the doorway holding a heavy duty wrench. She was dressed in overalls and a plain white t-shirt, she was about his mom’s age and had a pair of thick yellowish goggles pushed up into her corkscrew white-blonde hair.

“Speak! What are you an idiot? It was you who broke into my lab, wasn’t it?”

Connor blinked, mouth working.

“No,” he managed. “No. I’m here visiting--I’m looking for someone ...else.”

“How specific,” the woman snarled. “Why are you in my lab?”

“I didn’t know it was your lab,” Connor said, a note of derision creeping into his voice.

What was this woman’s problem?

“Who are you?” Connor blinked.

Now would be a great time to think up a good lie, his brain supplied. But what lie? He could play stupid? Make something up?

“I’m one of the interns from upstairs.”

Shit. Don’t make everything up!

“An intern?” the strange woman’s face relaxed. “Oh. Oh, of course. You’re Rick’s star intern? Shit, I’m sorry, kid. You don’t look the part, though, you look like a stoner. Or a high school dropout.”

“Wow, are you this nice to everyone?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

To his surprise, the woman laughed.

“My students don’t call me the ice bitch for nothing, even if they do say it behind my back,” she said, advancing into the room and grinning broadly.

She stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding the wrench and winked. “It’s nice to meet you, kid. We’ve got a lot of work to do this summer.”

Connor stared at her.

Then he offered his hand and said, “You can call me Connor.”

She had a firm handshake that left Connor’s fingers tingling when she let go.

“I’m Charlie,” she said. “Mostly my students call me Dr. H. Now, kid, help me with this tank.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gold stars to the smart cookie who figures out who the 3 doctors (Baron, Kahn, and H) are supposed to be. They are not OCs. ;)


	13. I'll Make You Shiver

“See if you can figure out what’s clogging the inflow on that tank, kid,” Dr. H shouted from across the lab. She was standing on top of the metal platforms that ran along the side of the room overlooking the hard drive banks. Connor sized up the tank. 

The inflow? That meant a pipe, right?

He turned back to ask Dr. H but she was already elbow-deep in the circuitry hanging from the ceiling and was hitting something violently with her wrench. Clearly, a soft touch wasn’t needed.

“This is old equipment kid,” she yelled. “You can’t break it. Christ, these things were made to last!”

She delivered this last part with a sudden shout as whatever was she attacking gave in. A low mechanical humming filled the lab. 

“Water supply’s back on line!”

Quickly Connor started on the tank. It seemed simple enough--it really was built like an aquarium. One tube to bring the water in, a filter, and another tube to cycle the dirty water out. Easy. 

Except not. 

Whatever had been put into the tank sure wasn’t water. The sticky pink liquid had dried on every surface it touched and had gummed up the filter entirely. 

“Well, this is going to be a pain in the ass to fix,” he muttered. “D.r H? This thing is covered in sticky stuff!”

“Not what I want to hear, intern,” D.r H called. “Put some elbow grease into it--I want that filter up and running stat.”

Connor shook his head. He wasn’t even getting paid for this crap. Karma was having a great big laugh at him now. He rummaged around the drawers until he found some rags and a bottle of Quatto. Then, rolling up his sleeves, he doused the outgoing filter and began scrubbing. 

Whatever the sticky pink stuff was it was clearly part sugar; it dissolved pretty readily with enough Quatto. Twenty minutes of work saw the tank functionally clean. Connor wiped down the side of the tank for good measure. It wasn’t sparkling but it would have to do. 

“Nice work, buddy,” Dr. H said, hopping down from her ladder to inspect his work. “Now let’s give it a test run.”

Connor slid out of the tank and pulled the little trapdoor shut. It sealed with a squelching noise but otherwise seemed airtight. Dr. H strode over to the command board and jabbed a few keys. With a rattling groan, the pipes along the side of the tank began to spew blue water. 

“Okay, I’m only going to fill it halfway,” she shouted. But no sooner had she finished speaking, a low thud sounded through the lab and the flow of water slowed to barely a trickle. “For fuck's sake.”

Connor frowned, tugging down his sleeves again. “There’s something in the pipes. It’s not the filter that’s the problem, something is physically blocking the water supply.”

Dr. H scowled. “Jesus. Well, reach your skinny little arm up there and see if you can reach it.”

“In the pipe?”

“Yeah, genius, go on. Take your socks off I’m not draining the tank again.”

Great. Fucking great. Connor stared at her another split second before cursing and peeling off his hoodie then his boots and socks. 

“Roll those skinny jeans up, buddy, get a move on.”

His jeans would only roll to his calves. Connor was beyond caring at this point. He stripped right down to his Star Wars boxers and climbed into the tank. 

Dr. H whistled at him. “That’s what I call commitment!”

Connor would have flipped her the bird had not he been shivering so hard. The inflow pipe was mercifully low to the ground and Connor had only to dunk his head under to reach it. He unscrewed the filter cap and slid his fingers into the slimy mouth of the metal tube. For a long moment he felt nothing, then his fingers brushed something soft. 

He pulled his arm out and shot up for air. 

“I can feel it, it’s right at the mouth of the pipe. It feels like...a rag or something?”

He plunged back under. He jammed his arm up to the shoulder into the pipe, straining every finger to grab onto the blockage. At last, he pinched a corner of the soft cottony fabric and slowly began plucking it out. His arm was smeared with algae and slime but in his hand, he held the cause of the blockage. It was dirty, caked in slime, but clearly some kind of cloth. It felt like polyester. 

Connor broke the surface of the tank and gasped as the cold air hit his lungs. 

“I got it!”

He turned, bleary eyed, to the platform but found it empty. Huh. He scrubbed at the cloth, sluicing it with water to rinse it of the slime. It was a sock, he realized. It had some sort of pattern on it--polka dots? No. Little green blobs...were those faces…? 

A cold pebble of recognition fell in Connor’s guts. 

Oh. 

No.

He waded to the lip of the tank and pulled himself out, shivering. His hair hung in dripping curtains down his back, cold rivulets tracking his skin and puddling at his feet. He grabbed his t-shirt and used it to dry off before wriggling back into his jeans. 

“Dr. H?”

“Over here, intern,” she replied. “Found it, did you?”

“Yeah.”

“What the devil was it?”

“Oh, uh. Just a rag.”

Dr. H stood at the far end of the lab in a corner Connor hadn’t noticed before. She was fiddling with an intercom attached to a control panel mounted on the wall. A pair of silver sliding doors stood before her. Connor hadn’t realized Murray Hall had an elevator and yet there was no mistaking the telltale  _ ding _ as the system came online and the slow rattling as the door parted. A voice announced  _ Basement Level Zero _ .

“Look alive, intern,’ Dr. H said, grinning. “We’ve got company.”

Standing between the elevator doors was the strangest looking man Connor had ever seen. By all rights, he shouldn’t have been remarkable. From his scrawny form to his oily blonde hair to his wrinkled lab coat, he was completely ordinary--more than ordinary, forgettable. But he had gold eyes set in a pale and serious face. Behind a pair of small rectangular glasses, those eyes burned with a molten intensity. Like someone had plucked out an eagle’s eyes and fixed them in the face of a man. They made him seem ancient although by all other accounts he was no more than forty. 

“Intern, I hardly need to introduce you, do I?”

“Oh, um,” Connor said. 

The man--doctor--stepped forward. The elevator doors rattled shut behind him. With a long skinny finger, he plucked his glasses off his nose and tucked them into his breast pocket. 

“No, indeed,” he said. 

His voice was like honey dripping from a spoon, every word drawn out, every syllable pronounced. An uncontrollable shiver wracked Connor’s body--he wanted to blame it on the chill. 

“So, you did send him, then?” Dr. H said. “This is your ‘star intern?’”

“Of course,” the doctor said, smiling. He turned his heavy lidded eyes to meet Connor’s. “How good to see you again, Mr. Murphy.”


End file.
